Go On and Carry Us Home
by clintnat
Summary: In which the farm family was a vision given to Clint by Wanda and he explains to Natasha why it would never make sense.


**NOTE: This was based off of some dialogue I wrote for a gifset - which I am making - and sent to a friend, then people found the post and it's been passed around all over social media.**

 **I own nothing but my words.**

The room is almost the way he remembers it; light blue wallpaper, now tattered and old, covering the walls, the small nick in the wood of the window sill that his father had left on one of his rampages still there, and toys; old Legos, Lincoln Logs, and Matchbox cars remained in corners of the room, abandoned mid-play on he and Barney's last night in the house.

Clint hated this place, hated this house. He hated any idea of a family, or even people, living here. If he looked around, his mind traced back to each bad memory every square inch held. If he had been given any other choice, The Avengers wouldn't be here, but they needed a place to lay low, and this was it. This awful house with so many memories of no one being able to save him was now his friends' safe haven.

He can feel Natasha watching him; he can't hear her, but he can feel her. He knows that she knows something's wrong; something's wrong with all of them to be honest, but the feeling of her eyes on him, knowing that she's there and she understands, is reassuring.

"I lied," he finally admits, breaking the silence, "When I told you that the Maximoff girl didn't mess with my head, I lied."

"I know," she replies, and of course she would know. She always knows. He's a spy and he's good at it; he's great at staying silent and keeping secrets, except when it comes to her. Natasha can read Clint like a book; a book that was written just for her.

He nods, shuffling his feet, "It was like a bad dream, a nightmare without the usual blood and gore and intensity, Tasha. It wasn't memories like yours. It was quick, a brief flash of a different life, a different world, I guess."

"Alternate universe?" she raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah, yeah. Alternate universe sounds right," he accepts, "Everything was different. We were friends but were weren't together. You and me, we weren't us. You and Banner-"

"Banner and I? Really? That doesn't make any sense," Natasha would have laughed, but the serious look on her partner's face read that it wasn't the time.

"-And this place, this farm, it wasn't mine and my brother's. It didn't carry that weight of a broken childhood; a family lived here. My family. I had a wife and kids and we lived here," he stops, looking at her. If it had been anyone else, they wouldn't have noticed the moment of pain flash in her eyes, the tiny break in her heart, already so broken from years before him.

"…Oh," was all she could say after a minute.

Clint took a step closer, reaching his hand out before she continued, "Clint, if that's something you want-"

"Stop," he interrupts, "Natasha, I told you, this wasn't some fairytale or fantasy; this was a nightmare. It made me realize something, though, something I already knew but hadn't said. The dream, my fear, whatever you want to call it; it showed me a world without us, a world where I don't love you. That isn't a world I want, it never has been."

He takes a step closer to her, closing the gap between them and places a hand on her cheek. She's forcing something back, he can see it; but he doesn't know whether it's a smile or tears or maybe a sigh of relief. It doesn't matter, though. She's right in front of him, here in this house that he hates, but she's all he can see, all he can feel.

"You sure?" she finally whispers, "Your vision- your dream showed you a life with a family, with kids and- and mine, I saw the moment that I had that option taken away from me. So, when you say you're sure, I want to know, are you sure? Are you sure that you can live without that? That you can live with me? Even though I will never be able to give you that?"

"Absolutely," Clint replies effortlessly, looking into eyes that could drop him to his knees, "Kids and a wife – unless that wife is you, someday, only if you want – and a farm won't make me happy. I lived the 'farm family' lifestyle before, and as you can see," he gestures to the rest of the farmhouse, wall paper peeling, dust covering everything else, "That didn't turn out so great for me."

Natasha closes her eyes, a barely noticeable sigh of relief escaping her, and he continues, "I just want you, Natasha. You make me happy; no normal job, normal wife, 2.5 kids, a white picket fence, and a dog are going to going to make me happy. - Okay, that dog might but not as happy as you make me. - Anyway, the point is, what I saw- that life could never make sense. This, us, we makes sense."

Natasha closes the rest of the gap this time, leaning into him as she reaches up to kiss him. She feels like home, like safety. She feels like everything he could ever want, and she is. Natasha is all of those things and the rest, the world they can't have, doesn't matter. She's here with him and she has been worth every second that he's known her, every different call he's ever made. He wouldn't take any of it back.

For a split second, she pulls away and gives him a questioning look, "For the record," she says very seriously, "You know that I would never- me and Banner would never-"

Clint chuckles, resting his forehead against hers, "I know."

"Good," she says, pulling him back into the kiss.


End file.
